


The Mark of the Splicer

by weakinteraction



Category: Jupiter Ascending (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Caine Wise/Stinger Apini, Bees, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-23 23:29:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12000189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakinteraction/pseuds/weakinteraction
Summary: In an AU where Stinger stopped Caine from attacking the Entitled in time, they continue in the skyjackers.  But one mission for the Legion goes disastrously wrong.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VanaTuivana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanaTuivana/gifts).



The temperature dropped as the sky deepened into twilight. Although most of him was warm -- too warm, if anything -- inside his suit, Caine could feel his wings getting colder. He turned off his gravity boots for a moment, instead using his wings to maintain altitude to warm them up again. He could just about make out the six nearest members of the century doing their own equivalents: little figure-of-eight flights, or allowing themselves to drop before beating back up again. All of them, though, maintained their station in the triangular grid pattern they composed throughout the atmosphere.

For a moment, the planet's ring system glittered spectacularly as it caught the last rays of the setting sun. The Terrsies down below were convinced that it was a natural phenomenon, the result of a small moon disintegrating under the strain of tidal forces as it spiralled inwards. Little did they know that it was actually the remains of a potential impactor from a little over three thousand years ago, that the system's Keepers had not noticed in time to use more subtle methods of deflection.

Quirk had said that the Terrsies did recognise that the lack of major impacts on their planet since their species had arisen -- they had no idea they had been seeded, of course -- was statistically unlikely. Some of them even noted that their recent history was full of crises that could have led to a war of, on their terms, horrifying destructive potential. But, of course, any who did realise that they had been carefully shepherded through natural and self-imposed disasters alike were dealt with by the Keepers.

Now, though, that same ring system concealed not one, but two, vast refinery fleets, ready to harvest now that the planet was ripe.

And that was why the Legion were here, in numbers unprecedented in over five hundred years: thirty-six cohorts in all, including almost all the skyjackers in this quadrant of the galaxy. A Disputed Harvest had not turned into a shooting war in nearly ten millennia, but the Houses of Xo and Agjorion were both determined to press their claims. As well they might: this planet was one of the largest in the galaxy that was capable of supporting human life, only just below the mass where it would have turned into a gas giant in its early formation. Its output when harvested would make a huge difference to the Regen-X market overall.

The Legion's job was to prevent either side from landing before the court delivered its final judgement. But their very presence meant that it was impossible for the Keepers to maintain their concealment of the truth of the situation, at which point the outcome became highly unpredictable. And so the accountants' calculations might well tip over to the point where the consequences of engaging in armed conflict not only with each other, but with the legion, were considered acceptable losses. And if one House made a move, the other surely would too.

"It's starting," Quirk said, his technopathic senses picking up on signs that none of the others would be able to. The comm crackled, the jamming fields of both fleets ramping up.

"We are the line, skyjackers," Stinger said from his position in the centre of his century's formation, over a howl of static. He meant it literally: the skyjackers had been deployed in a belt around the planet, directly underneath the ring system, at the altitude the court had declared as the upper boundary of the claim.

And then all contact was lost, and everything was happening at once.

Lesser troops would have panicked, cut off from the data streams that constantly rolled across the heads up display of their suits. But they were skyjackers, and they were the line.

The competing refinery vessels screamed down towards them, flanked by fighter craft. The Agjorion ships were barely there, the fighters' physical structure consisting of a single well-armoured unit that was slipdrive and forcefield generator in one. Even the pilot's cockpit was constructed entirely from the intersecting energy planes it projected. The Xo ships, by contrast, were bulky metal arrowheads, yet surprisingly agile.

Caine could only watch as they approached at speed; even as the two side began to take pot shots at one another, they were not in violation unless they crossed through the line.

And then, suddenly, the lead ships flattened out from their dives, flying only metres over the heads of the skyjackers. It took all Caine's training to resist the urge, ridiculous as it was, to duck, as ship after ship flew overhead.

It had all been a bluff after all, one or other of the Houses testing the other's resolve, or simply probing to try to find a weakness for the coming battle that they believed was inevitable.

The jamming fields switched off; his heads up display filled up once more. The crisis had passed, for the moment. But then, one of the Agjorion fighters took a fatal hit. Its physical unit exploded in a brief, fierce blossom of eldritch energy, as the wormhole at the core of its reactor destabilised. The energy planes making up the rest of the vehicle simply winked out of existence, leaving the pilot suddenly falling.

Caine's heads up display was already calculating trajectories, his suit interfacing with those of his nearest neighbours in the formation. It quickly determined that he had the best chance of a successful recovery.

Caine began to swoop down to intercept the falling pilot.

"Maintain position," Stinger said.

"Negative," Caine said. "I have a trajectory." He beat his wings hard, and kicked back, pushing his boots beyond their nominal limits. His suit struggled to keep up with recomputing the trajectory he should follow to account for his added speed.

"Maintain position, soldier!" Stinger said.

But Caine was already nearly at the pilot. He put himself into a steeper dive, wings swept back, so that he could match the pilot's speed and pick them up almost gently.

The pilot's helmet went transparent. It turned out to be a young woman: probably only a few years older than Stinger's daughter, Kiza, Caine thought. Her lips were moving, but their comm systems weren't compatible. A few moments later, his suit provided a lipreading analysis: it was most likely that she had said "Thank you, skyjacker", but the algorithm assigned a 35% probability to the alternative "Fuck you, skyjacker".

"Get back here _now_ , Wise," Stinger said over a private link.

Caine looked up to see that an Agjorion support vessel was vectoring down to just above the hole Caine had left in the formation, presumably ready to pick up the pilot. Xo fighters buzzed around it like angry insects, but didn't take any direct action.

The support vessel's fields flexed and one side reformed into a staircase. Caine delivered the pilot to the bottom of it; he tried to steady her as she rose to her feet at an altitude of eighty kilometres, but she shrugged him off. He watched as she stiffly walked up; as soon as she reached the core of the vessel, the fields suddenly turned completely opaque. Then the craft re-orientated itself and shot back up towards its waiting command ship.

Caine returned to his position in the formation. "Nice flying, Caine," Quirk said over the open channel as he did so, to a chorus of assenting voices.

Stinger's was not among them.


	2. Chapter 2

Caine stood at attention as Stinger paced around the room in agitated patterns.

It was hours since the two Houses had launched their ships; still no one knew for sure whether they had been engaged in a serious race to harvest the planet, and aborted at the last moment, or whether the whole thing had been a show of strength by both sides. Another century had relieved them at local midnight, and Caine's century had made their way back to the barracks. Now, there was time for Stinger to deal with Caine's actions.

It wasn't that Stinger had never had cause to bawl Caine out before now; far from it, in fact. But he was usually so calm and matter-of-fact about it. There would be some unpleasant duty for Caine to do for a week, or on one occasion a whole month, and then no more would be said about it. Even before that time had elapsed, sometimes that very same night, Stinger would appear in his quarters with a bottle of something illicit and things would go back to normal between them, whatever normal was.

But this was different. Stinger was taking this one far too personally for Caine's liking, and he couldn't even guess at what the reason might be.

Eventually he stopped pacing, shook his head a few times, then turned it, still downcast, to look at Caine, without turning his body. "I gave you a direct order!"

"With respect, _sir_ , it was a stupid order."

"Our job was to hold the line. Nothing more, nothing less. The Xo are already complaining that the Legion is favouring the Agjorion claim."

"Because I rescued a pilot? Do they really think I wouldn't do that for one of theirs?"

Stinger laughed. "Can you really be that naive? After everything you've seen ..." He slumped down into his chair. "Who cares what they 'really think', it's what they can argue in court that matters. You've given them just enough room for manoeuvre, so they're going to take it."

He seemed about to say more, but that was when Kiza came in. "Oh, good, you two are fighting. Now you'll both be in a bad mood for days."

"This is Legion business," Stinger said, with a harshness in his tone that was very rarely turned in Kiza's direction. Caine caught her eye and saw the same thing there that he had thought earlier: there was something wrong here, something neither Caine nor Kiza yet understood.

"Well, I'm the official cute mascot of the Legion in this here barrack asteroid, so--"

Caine saw the new visitor first, but it was only when Stinger reacted by standing bolt upright to attention that Kiza realised she needed to stop talking.

"How strange. _I_ am the official commanding officer of the Legion in this here barrack asteroid. And, unless House Teskiri are throwing another one of those parties in the Garoux system that certain of my colleagues think I don't know they attend, quite possibly this entire spiral arm of the galaxy."

Kiza turned round and swallowed. "I'm sorry, Legate," she said quietly. "I didn't mean any--"

Legate Vi put her finger on Kiza's lips. Caine would have hated such a gesture, but the natural submission to authority that was part of the genome Kiza had inherited from her father took hold. "I've heard about you," she said. "Are you surprised?" Kiza shook her head. A lot of people had heard about Kiza: it wasn't that splices having children with humans was completely unprecedented -- in a galaxy with a population in the trillions, and a billion years of history, nothing was _completely_ unprecedented -- but it was still rare enough to be worthy of comment. The lassitude that Stinger received in having her allowed to live with him on active assignment was even more gossiped about, though it was generally taken as a sign of how valuable an officer he was to the Legion. "Well, run along now. I need to borrow these two gentlemen."

"Two, ma'am?" Stinger said after Kiza had ducked away as quickly as she could.

"Two," the Legate said. "Your lycantant here has made rather a big impression on my visitor."

"Visitor, ma'am?" Stinger said.

"We are of course delighted to extend the hospitality of the Legion to the primary of House Agjorion, even if a skyjacker barracks is hardly capable of the type of luxury they are used to."

"Karella Agjorion is here, ma'am?"

"Karella Agjorion _is_ here, Centurion. And, oh wonderful day, so too is the primary of House Xo, who I am assured it is correct to refer to only as Xo, however rude I feel I am being when I do so."

"What business would Xo have here?" Caine asked. "Ma'am," he added, too slowly to avoid a glare.

"None that I can see, other than trying to make sure we are not colluding with House Agjorion," Vi said. "Or trying to gather evidence that we are. Now, you will both be on your best behaviour, won't you?"

Caine and Stinger exchanged a long look as they followed the Legate out into the main arena of the barracks. The other skyjackers all around them, flying through the open volume of the hollowed out planetoid, may as well not have been there at all. Caine could tell that Stinger's mind was no longer on any present dispute between them, but drifting back to three years previously. The only other time Caine had come into contact with an Entitled had almost ended in disaster. Stinger had had to hold him back by the wings -- a huge taboo among the skyjackers -- to prevent him from lashing out. If he had been even a moment later, Caine did not know what would have happened. Worse still, he could not explain to himself why he had done it: where the sudden rage towards the man standing before him had come from. And now, if he was to be in close proximity to _two_ Entitled ...

The two of them could have flown up to the rec area suspended in the very middle of the volume, but Vi had a gravity disc and so they stepped onto it beside her. By tradition, gravity manipulation was not used inside skyjacker barracks, not even boots: instead, the asteroid was spun to simulate standard gravity at the outer rim, providing a steep gradient to the microgravity in the centre. All the better for combat training, the skyjackers would claim to others, but amongst themselves they freely admitted that it was the sheer joy of the complex flight paths they could achieve that mostly motivated it. But no one was going to argue that a Legate should not be able to transport themselves around. Vi had never had the wings, having risen up through the technomancer corps, experts in electronic and nanoscopic warfare. Even if she had, Caine suspected she would not use them in such circumstances.

There was more gravity manipulation going on when they arrived at their destination: the mess hall, with its perches and surfaces protruding from all angles, had been unceremoniously allocated a _down_ by the use of a gravimetric generator somewhere. On what had suddenly become the floor were stood the two Entitled. Karella Agjorion was tall and thin, wearing golden ceremonial armour and a look of utter disdain. Xo, of the House of Xo, was a short, broad-shouldered man with no neck to speak of. His eyes seemed to be constantly hunting around the room for something, probably any evidence of wrongdoing.

Caine could feel his blood rushing in his ears, gorge rising in his throat. Stinger glared at him, and with a great effort of will, he fought back the instincts that told him to attack the pair right here and now. Their dispute over the planet would hardly matter when they were both lying on the floor, surrounded by their own blood--

"--Mister ... Wise, is it?" Agjorion was talking. To him. He tried to recall what she had said up to that point, but to no avail.

"Caine Wise, ma'am," Stinger said, covering for him. "One of my best men."

"House Agjorion extends its gratitude for the rescue of our pilot, Caine Wise," she said. "I have come here personally to ensure that you know how much we appreciate the Legion's scrupulous attention to ensuring everything goes smoothly while the unfortunate issues around our entirely valid claim to this world are resolved." Xo made a low, threatening noise, but did not interrupt.

"Thank you, ma'am," Caine said, still fighting back the urge to launch an attack on one or both of them. Where did this instinct come from? What was wrong with him?

"However, I'm afraid there is another matter--" But it seemed they were not going to find out what it was. Both of the two primaries received calls on their communicators at the same time. They listened intently to whatever it was their aides were telling them, and then something most unexpected happened: they nodded at one another curtly, and everything about their body language changed instantly.

It was Xo who spoke. "I am pleased to announce that the Legion's presence at this world is no longer required. You may redeploy your troops elsewhere according to need."

"I'm sorry, your excellency," Legate Vi said. "But I must admit that I do not fully understand."

"The Terrsies down there are trying to use their fission devices," Karella Agjorion said in a voice of utmost boredom. "On each other, not us. They've realised that we're there by now, of course, but the different groupings each believe that we've come at the behest of their enemies. And a nuclear war is quite the worst thing for the merchandise."

"The Keepers have it under control for now," Xo said, "but even they can't work miracles. We've set up a joint venture to harvest the world together. The ships are already descending, and it would be ideal if the Legion weren't enforcing an arbitrary no fly zone that's no longer relevant."

"It's not the outcome either of us was hoping for, but now the least worst option."

"We've had the corporate filings ready to go on Orous for months," Xo said. "I can assure you that we two are fully authorised to speak for the Xo-Agjorion Corporation."

"Agjorion-Xo, I think you'll find." She smiled at him, then. It was disgusting, Caine thought, how it was all just a game to them. He was--

He was _not_ going to give in to this, this ... whatever was wrong with him. But the sooner the Entitled left, the better.

"Very well, your excellency," Vi said, and then with a bow to Karella, "Imperatrix."

"There is still that other matter," Agjorion said.

"Of course," Vi said. "What can we help you with?"

"Our pilot has given us good reason to believe that the shot which destroyed her ship was fired by one of your own troops."

"If that is the case, we will deal with it at once, I assure you, Imperatrix. Do you have any way of knowing who was responsible?"

"Indeed I do," Karella Agjorion said. She raised her ceremonial spear and extended it. "It was him. Stinger Apini."


	3. Chapter 3

Caine kicked off gently from the rec sphere and let himself fall slowly, on a trajectory that spiralled in accordance with the Coriolis forces inside the asteroid. He needed the time to think.

Everything had happened so quickly: Stinger's arrest, the Entitleds' departure, the great jarring thud as the tugs latched on to the asteroid to drag it to the gate. The Legion were already withdrawing _en masse_ , even as Terrsies died in their hundreds of billions in the harvest.

Caine knew that he would have to be the one to tell Kiza, but he had no idea how to do so. By the time he finally arrived back at the Apinis' quarters, he still wasn't sure what he was going to say.

"You're back!" Kiza said when she saw him. "But where's Dad? Are you two still fighting?"

"No," Caine said.

"Good," she said, before he had a chance to say any more. "I hate it when--"

"Kiza," he said. "Listen to me. Your father has been arrested. He's going to be court martialled."

The horror on her face was abject. Caine guided her to a chair, cursing himself for not having made sure she was sitting down before he said anything.

"We're going to figure this out, Kiza," he said, speaking quickly. "There's been some horrible mix up, and we'll get it all straightened out."

"I ... I don't understand," Kiza said. "Everyone says he's one of the best centurions in the cohort. And I know they're not just saying that to be nice to _me_ , because if it wasn't true I wouldn't even be here to get to hear it." She took a deep breath. "What are they saying he's done?"

"House Agjorion are claiming that he's the one who shot down their fighter."

"The one that _you_ rescued the pilot from?" Caine nodded. "That's ridiculous--"

"Yes, yes, it is," Caine said. "That's why it's going to be easy to straighten out. We just have to figure out how."

"Well, do they have the recordings from your suits? Surely that would--"

It was then that Quirk came in; behind him in the doorway, Caine could see half a dozen more of the skyjackers. "The trouble is, miss, the jamming fields were at maximum when it happened," he said. "Even I only have an organic memory of the whole thing." Turning to Caine, he added, "Don't be surprised we're here. Word travels fast."

"We're going to figure this out," Caine said again, though he felt as though he was trying to convince himself most of all. Quirk nodded.

"I want to see him," Kiza said.

"Kiza--"

"Take me to see him, Caine." She put her hands on her hips. "You know that if he was here, he'd be ordering you to do it."

"If he was here, he wouldn't need to, would he?" Caine said. But he held out his hands for Kiza to take, and led her out of the quarters to the small ledge that looked out of the hollowed out rock face into the wider arena. He turned back in the doorway. "Quirk, get to work on whether it is possible to reconstruct any electronic records. I'll find out if Stinger has anything to say that will help us."

"If they let you in," Quirk said.

"They're going to let us in," Kiza said grimly. "Come on, Caine."

He picked her up -- it was shocking how light she was, a painful reminder that despite her stoicism, she was wasting away from the inside out as her incompatible genes tore each other apart -- and set out across the volume, beating his wings steadily.

"We used to have so much fun flying," Kiza said as they passed under the rec sphere. "You, me and dad."

"We will again," Caine said. "I promise you."

When they arrived at the cells, a little used area of the barracks that had been hastily pressed into service, Caine saw that Pann was on guard. She was one of the small group of non-winged troops on board, though still entitled to call herself a skyjacker by association. She looked crestfallen; she must have seen Caine and Kiza on the way, but perhaps she had managed to convince herself, against all probability, that they had some other destination in mind. "I'm sorry, I can't let you in," she said. "Legate's express orders."

They heard Stinger's voice from inside. "I have the right to speak to my legal representatives," he said, matter-of-factly.

"These two aren't your legal representatives, sir," she said, sounding pained. "The Legate has made arrangements for a frumentarius to take on that role when we arrive at our destination. You can speak to them then."

"I have the right to choose my own legal representation," Stinger said. He paused for effect. "And to speak to them."

"The frumentarius--"

"--will be highly accomplished at convincing the court that a century of skyjackers can dance on the head of a pin, I am sure," Stinger said. "But I want to speak to _my_ legal representatives. Who are standing in front of you now."

"This is all highly irregular," Pann said. "I will have to check with the Legate."

"Be our guest," Caine said.

They waited while Pann relayed the situation over the comm link. There was a pause and then she said, "You can go in."

"Thank you," Caine said.

"I have a message for you to give him from the Legate," Pann said.

"Oh?" Kiza said.

"She says to tell him he's a bloody fool."

"And what do you think?"

"Good luck, is what I think," Pann said. "You're all going to need it."

* * *

When they got inside the cell, Stinger was pacing again. It seemed that he couldn't stay still, covering almost the entire floor. "Here's what you're going to say," he said. "I was acting in self-defence."

"What?" Caine and Kiza said together. For a moment, Kiza started to laugh, but then bit it off.

"That pilot of yours had lost control and was coming straight for me. I had no way to know it wasn't a deliberate hostile act. It was a split second decision."

"And is that what happened?" Caine said.

"It's what I'm telling you happened," Stinger said. "Do you have any reason to doubt my word?"

"I--"

"Is there any electronic record?"

"The jamming fields were up," Kiza said, eagerly.

"Quirk's working on it," Caine said.

"Of course he is," Stinger said. "Did anyone see it happen?"

"It all happened so fast," Caine said.

"So you didn't see it happen?"

"No," he admitted.

"What did you think happened?"

"A stray shot from the Xo fighters," Caine said. "Things were escalating rapidly."

Stinger sat down opposite them. "But you didn't see it?"

"What's going on here?" Caine said. "Why do you want to take the blame?"

Stinger said nothing for some time. But then, quietly, "Because I did fire the shot."

"You did?" Kiza said. "Why?"

"I was acting in self-defence," he said. Slowly and carefully, he repeated, "The pilot of the Agjorion fighter had lost control and was coming straight for me. I had no way to know it wasn't a deliberate hostile act. It was a split second decision."

"The court martial isn't going to care about any of that," Caine said. "As soon as you admit you did it, that's it. You'll be out of the Legion, they'll clip your wings--"

Kiza was horrified. "You can't do it, dad."

Stinger got up and starting pacing restlessly again.

"We're going to find out what really happened," Caine said. "Whether you want us to or not." He got up to leave, but Kiza pulled down on his arm sharply.

Caine gave her an inquiring look, but she waved a hand irritably at him. "Keep talking," she whispered.

"Do you remember what you told me once?" Caine said.

"I've told you lots of things," Stinger said, still walking in the jittery way he seemed to have adopted. "Not all of which I'd want you to repeat in front of my daughter."

"About the Legion," Caine said. "How it's my pack now, after I lost the one I was born into. The same way it's your hive, only they designed you that way." He looked at Kiza. "He told me not to tell the others, that they wouldn't like it. But I don't mind telling you." But it seemed as though she was barely listening. He turned back to Stinger. "But it's true. And that's how I know everyone's going to work together to sort this out. Quirk's going to find a way to get the recordings back. I'll talk to everyone else and see if they saw anything. I can even try contacting the pilot," he went on. "There must be some way of doing it without going through official channels."

"She works for Agjorion and they're the ones accusing me," Stinger said. "Even if you can talk to her without them knowing, she won't betray them."

"It's still worth a try," Caine insisted.

Stinger stopped pacing. "Oh, we are a pair, aren't we? The lycantant without a pack and the apiform with a hive but no queen." He looked at Caine and Kiza in turn. "Very well. Do whatever you have to do."

* * *

"What was that all about?" Caine asked Kiza when they were back in the Apinis' quarters. In the short time they'd been at the cells, they had been turned into a makeshift headquarters for the century's impromptu investigation into the situation. Ten skyjackers were discussing possible strategies, while Quirk had a huge set of displays filling the kitchen as he dug through data slices that they had removed from their suits. He moved deftly out of the way as Kiza prepared herself a snack; Caine was surprised that she had any appetite at all, given the circumstances.

"What was what all about?" Kiza asked.

"'Keep talking'," Caine said. "The more he said, the more trouble he was in. You know they record everything in there, don't you? Whether they're legally entitled to or not."

"What he was saying was irrelevant," Kiza said distractedly.

"Now you've really lost me," Caine said.

"Didn't you see the way he was moving?" she said. "Like he couldn't keep still, not for a second?"

"He was nervous, sure, but--"

"He was _dancing_ , Caine! It's what bees do, how they pass on messages to the rest of the hive."

"And you can understand it?"

"Well, that's the problem," Kiza said. "I'm only half-bee, after all. I can remember the motions he did, but I don't really understand the significance of them. It's like seeing something written in a language you don't know, but that uses the same alphabet ..." She held up the plate she had just finished preparing. "Hence this."

Quirk put his hand up. "Add me to the tally of people who are _hopelessly_ lost, miss."

"The topping is royal jelly," she said, smearing her finger through it and licking it. "I have to have a little every day for my ... condition."

"That doesn't exactly look like a little," Caine said. The topping was drizzled generously all over the base Kiza had constructed.

"Oh, it's not," Kiza said breezily. "It's our entire supply."

"Then if you eat it all now--"

"I'll access the hive memory," Kiza said. "And _then_ I'll understand what dad was trying to say."

She sat down at the table and proceeded to eat her way through the enormous serving she had given herself. Caine watched as the expression on her face changed from dawning realisation to concern, to amusement, to shock, as the understanding of the dance language, and hence her father's message, unlocked itself in her brain.

"Kiza, what is it?"

"Oh, dad, you shouldn't have."

And then she fainted.


	4. Chapter 4

Caine swore as they grazed against the side of the hangar.

"Language!" Kiza said. Then she coughed for nearly half a minute. Caine gave her a sympathetic look, received a glare in return.

The barge handled like a Centrobolitan megapachyderm having a particularly stubborn day. But it had all the key advantages they needed: its own stardrive, sufficiently voluminous internal spaces that wings could fit inside, and a transponder old enough that the little box of tricks Quirk had given them could override it easily. And most importantly, an impressively large unladen mass.

"Logistics Unit Three, please come in," came a voice from the comm unit. The woman speaking was calm, almost supernaturally so in Caine's perception in contrast to the tension he felt humming through his entire body. "We do not have a flight plan filed for you."

Kiza cleared her throat before pushing the button to reply. "Uh, negative, Control, we are following flight plan Upsilon-23. Please check again."

"We will, LU3, but while we do please stand down."

"Negative, Control. You know how these things steer. If we stop in the middle of the hangar we'll never get started again. And you don't want to block up the entire schedule because of us, do you?"

Control laughed. "You're not wrong there. My wife used to pilot one of those. OK, park outside at fifty klicks."

"Roger that, Control," Kiza said. "Give our regards to your wife."

The hangar doors opened and Caine steered through them.

Kiza activated the countdown on the screen. They had exactly two minutes to reach their destination.

"Logistics Unit Three, please explain what you're doing," came the voice of Control when it became apparent they weren't going to come to a halt as requested. She didn't sound so calm any more.

"Uh, negative, Control," Kiza said. "We, ah--"

"Wise, bring that barge back this instant." It was Legate Vi herself. "I know what you think you're doing, but this little stunt will only make things worse for everyone. The Legion--"

And then, right on time, the communications cut off, a consequence of Quirk taking down the entire barracks' power system and the redundant backups simultaneously.

A few moments later the barge was in position, directly facing the asteroid.

"Ready?" Caine said to Kiza with a fierce grin.

"Hell, no," Kiza said. "But it's now or never."

Caine pushed forward on the control stick as hard as he could, toggling every drive setting he could to maximise thrust for just a few seconds.

The crash shook the entire ship, and Caine knew it would have reverberated inside the asteroid too. Even as he raced to the airlock, he imagined everyone inside scrambling to make sense of what had happened.

He cycled the airlock before the suit was fully deployed, and used his boots to cross the space to the outer wall of the asteroid as quickly as possible. He dived past the nose of the barge embedded in it, finding the place where the rock was weakest. He crashed into it as hard as he could; air rushed outwards to meet him as he gained access.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Stinger said.

"Prison break," said Caine. "Why, what does it look like? Here, put this on." He tossed across a suit.

Stinger stared at it in disbelief. "Didn't you get the message?"

"The one you gave to Kiza? That's exactly why we're here. Now put the suit on before you suffocate."

"I don't matter. Only she does. You were supposed to look after her for me, Caine."

"Funny thing about that," Caine said. "She decided she didn't want to go anywhere without her father. And neither did I," he added after a moment.

There was activity outside now, half the occupants of the barracks gathered around the entrance to the cells. In the thinning air, Legate Vi's shouting seemed impossibly far away. And in a way it was: between her and her orderlies stood most of Stinger's century, preventing them from reaching the cells. Pann stood to one side, looking pained.

"But I betrayed you," Stinger said. He shouted to the skyjackers outside, "Don't you understand? I betrayed you all."

"We're a pack," Caine said simply. "Now come on. The power cut won't last forever. And nor will the Legate's desire not to fire on her own troops."

Stinger put on the suit, and let Caine drag him out with the gravity boots. They boarded the barge and Kiza instantly began reversing. "Only superficial damage," she said. "She's a tough old thing, Logistics Unit Three." The possibility of rendering the barge unusable in the ramming manoeuvre had been the riskiest part of the plan by far; Caine was glad that Quirk's calculations had been borne out.

Caine took the controls from Kiza as she embraced her father. Vi couldn't launch any craft after them, or send a signal to the Aegis, until the power was restored, which gave them a minute and a half to get to a clear distance for the jump.

"Logistics Unit Three, return immediately to base! Immediately!"

Oh well. If one of Quirk's calculations had to be wrong, that was probably the least worst.

"Negative, Control," Caine said. "Stand by for some gravimetric turbulence."

Jumping this close to even a small mass like the barracks was risky, but it was a day for taking risks. The drive unit projected the gate ahead, and the barge sailed smoothly into it.

* * *

"Well, now that we've avoided being turned into goo smeared across eleven different dimensions, one of you had better explain to me what's going on."

"Once you told us what was really going on, it was simple," Kiza said.

Stinger's complicated bee dance in the prison cell had explained everything: how he had agreed to help House Agjorion in exchange for them arranging a recode for Kiza. And not just any backalley genetic clinic job, they had promised to secure the services of Marcellian Cahun herself. The Splicer whose mark Stinger and Caine both wore.

Stinger had been supposed to shoot down the Agjorion fighter and let the pilot fall. Rescuing her would give them a plausible reason to break the blockade. Caine had obviously put paid to that idea, unwitting though it may have been. Once the harvest had switched to being a joint venture, they needed Stinger to take the fall to avoid any lingering mistrust that it had been a Xo weapon shooting it down. Shortly after Stinger had been taken to the cells, they'd got a message to him that they would honour their promise to cure Kiza, as long as he played along.

"You can communicate all that by shuffling around on the floor?" Caine had asked, when Kiza had explained after she recovered from the initial shock.

"Bees," she'd said, raising an eyebrow.

Stinger had been willing to sacrifice himself, as well as betray the Legion, for his daughter. Natural enough: he had had a queen all along, whatever he had believed. But Caine had decided there was a better way: blackmail. If the details of the subterfuge came out, House Xo would be entitled to sue for total ownership of their joint venture. Half of one of the largest Terrsie worlds was far better than none. And the price of meeting Caine's demands was a minimal outlay. The only problem was that they had no way to prevent Stinger's court martial now that the process was under way.

"How is any of this simple?" Stinger said when they'd finished explaining. "We can never return to the Legion, now. What have you done to your future?" he asked Caine.

"You would do the same for me," Caine said. "I know it."

"Don't bet on it," Stinger said gruffly. But the look in his eyes spoke volumes.

Kiza smiled at them both, but then started coughing again.

"Withdrawal," Stinger said quietly. "From taking so much royal jelly. She'll get worse a lot faster now."

"Well then," said Caine. "It's a good thing we're going straight to the Splicer."

"Exactly what did you threaten House Agjorion with?" Stinger said. "And where are we going?" he added, looking at the navigational controls. "I don't recognise that system at all."

"It's a Terrsie world, part of the Abrasax estate. It's tied up in complicated inheritance proceedings."

"Oh?"

"The recurrence of the previous owner was found on the planet itself," Kiza explained. She smiled. "I think she might be just a little bit rarer than me."

"The world's off limits while it all goes through the courts," Caine said. "Or at least until one of the Abrasax siblings makes some other sort of move against their new mother. But for now it's the perfect place for a clandestine meeting with a geneticist." He shrugged. "Who knows, maybe I'll even find out why I have such a strong reaction to Entitleds."

"Very well, then," Stinger said. "Let's meet our maker. Take us to--" he glanced at the navigational controls again to check the unfamiliar name of their destination "--Earth."


End file.
